Swimming Odontodactylus scyllarus

[Gonodactylus]

There are tons of photos on line of O. scyllarus threatening, carrying eggs, mating, etc., but they are also good and fast swimmers and I can't recall seeing any shots of one moving out at high speed. This week I had a few minutes and decided to try to capture one in action. It was more difficult than I anticipated. Getting the animal to swim through the frame was hard as was stopping the action. Attached is my best attempt so far. Hopefully I can still do better.

Roy

[Dana42078]

Thats a sweet shot by any means!! Trying to get a pic of any mantis moving is unbelievably difficult. Nice job Roy!

[gnasher]

Ha, I've seen this look once before headed straight at my face after startling mine walking into the room. Love these photos! I recently changed my wallpaper to the one below. How do you get them to swim where you want them?

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/arthropoda/crustacea/malacostraca/eumalacostraca/royslist/images/o_japonicus3.jpg

[Gonodactylus]

I set up the strobes aimed at a point mid-water in the aquarium and focus the camera on the point where the strobes intersect. Then I fire a couple of test exposures to get the lighting right and to get an idea of what is in focus. The key to getting the shot is a really brief flash duration - 1/20,000 of second. Then I prime the water with a bit of shrimp blood and introduce the feeding stick at the front of the tank so that if the animal swims in a straigh line from its burrow to the feeding stick it will pass through the spot I'm focused on. As the animal charges at the stick, I fire a burst of exposures - three or four 150 msec apart. With luck, one of them catches the animal in focus and in frame. In reality, perhaps one shot in 20 is worth even looking at.

Roy

[Kharn]

I set up the strobes aimed at a point mid-water in the aquarium and focus the camera on the point where the strobes intersect. Then I fire a couple of test exposures to get the lighting right and to get an idea of what is in focus. The key to getting the shot is a really brief flash duration - 1/20,000 of second. Then I prime the water with a bit of shrimp blood and introduce the feeding stick at the front of the tank so that if the animal swims in a straigh line from its burrow to the feeding stick it will pass through the spot I'm focused on. As the animal charges at the stick, I fire a burst of exposures - three or four 150 msec apart. With luck, one of them catches the animal in focus and in frame. In reality, perhaps one shot in 20 is worth even looking at.

Roy

I do similar albeit on no where near the same level of quality or professionalism as you but I try:o, I understand that getting the "perfect" shot is next to impossible if your aiming at only taking 1 pic....What I do is I make about a 60sec film of the display animal, then disect the film into 10's - 100's of individual pics then choose the best pic from the lot and bin the rest, albeit I am working with only a "GOOD" webcam and not a "REAL" camera....

But that will all soon change =)

[MantisO_o]

Awe Odontodactylus japonicus... :(

Very nice shots Dr. Roy...i love seeing all the crystal clear and details of your photos :)

[TundraGuy]

This is art. I got nothing more to add……..